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As I mentioned before, the biggest difference between modeling Then and Now is that back Then, I modeled alone. Now, I model with a bunch of other people. Left to myself, I would probably more-or-less constantly build 1/48th scale World War II fighters, with a more modern jet (in the same scale) tossed in from time to time. But since I emerged from the Dark Ages, I've been attending meetings of the NorthWest Scale Modelers and the Seattle Chapter of the IPMS, and the trouble with hanging around other modelers in groups like this is: they change your point of view! I'm not prevented from pursuing my primary interest, but would I have built two cars but for John Fincher's influence? A tank without pressure from Andrew Birkbeck and Bob Le Buoy? Two spacecraft (the Explorer I satellite launcher and Mars Rover), if I didn't have to accommodate Rocket Man Tim Nelson? Back Then, I built plastic model airplanes for a year before learning of another airplane modeler, who turned out to be the older brother of my 5thgrade girl friend, Tanya Smith. He built balsa airplanes with miniature engines up front, flown by U-control. This seemed to me the most exotic of technologies, and I was surprised, intrigued, and more than a little intimidated when Tanya gave me a Christmas present he'd picked: a Scientific Models Cessna Skyhawk. It would be awhile before I would do anything with this…a story I'll take up in a future column. Then there were my next-door neighbors, the Matekonises. Robert was my best friend for years, and we did lots of things together such as play Army outside with our extensive arsenals, and indoors with our army men sets, plus countless hours at Monopoly, Parcheesi, and cards. We shared a passion for the Superman D.C. comic book heroes: my favorite was Flash, his Green Lantern. We would buy different issues each month and then share them at marathon comic-book reading parties, fuelled by Ritz crackers, Turkish Taffy, and Ghirardelli Flicks. But we didn't model together; he and his older brother Michael built cars. I never had any interest in cars, and it didn't occur to me that I could sit with them and build, even if our subjects were different. The first person that modeled like me turned out to be Kenneth Murphy, whose existence I had known about in sixth grade. However, he was in the Class Across the Hallway, and if you remember social protocols from the time, you'll understand why we didn't fraternize. Our sixth grade classes may have done some playground or holiday activities together, perhaps three or four times that year. Outside of that, I scarcely knew his name. But then we advanced to seventh grade, and met casually in line at the cafeteria. We sat together and after only a few minutes, found ourselves on the topic of modeling. We began to list for each other various airplanes we'd built, finding that the ones we had most in common were the Aurora World War I planes. While ticking off his builds, Ken paused once, trying to remember a name. “It's a British two-seater, and the odd thing is that the lower wing isn't attached to the fuselage directly, but is propped out on struts like the top wing.” I remembered: the Bristol Fighter. We inevitably began coordinating trips to the Lakewood Thunderbird drugstore. These trips had to be frequent because we never knew when new models would be put out to re-stock their small hobby kit section. The magazines in the racks also changed, and we would watch for anything aviation related. Similarly, we'd visit Custer's school library together, perusing the few aviation-related books, and paging through the latest issue of Model Airplane News, the only aviation- or modeling-related magazine the school library had a subscription for. Come to think of it, we knew of no other at the time, and while M.A.N. mostly dealt with balsa flying models, there were enough ads to keep us interested in plastic kits, too. While we didn't actually sit and build together, we shared news of our activities, and visited each other's houses from time to time to look over our latest creations. One of these visits was both exciting and traumatic: Ken won the Revell sweepstakes, and they sent him a box of half a dozen kits from their line! The scoundrel: I entered the sweepstakes, too… but didn't win. This isn't dependent only on my aging memory: see this picture.
I attended seventh grade with Ken at Custer for just a couple of months before my parents moved to Kent to ease my father's commute to Boeing. Ken and I remained pen pals, or to be precise: “pencil pals”. (I'm indebted to Charles Schulz and his creation Charlie Brown for the phrase: I remember writing my notes in pencil, not pen.) We kept this correspondence through junior and senior high school, while we both kept modeling, visiting occasionally during vacations and such, particularly after we learned to drive motorcycles. We reunited as roommates at the University of Washington. There, we built our last two plastic kits: his 1/48thscale Monogram Bf-109E in Swiss markings, and my 1/72ndAMT Dornier 217 in Romanian. After that came the Dark Ages, when we went almost totally separate ways with careers, first homes, first wives… you all know the ‘drill'... But shortly after I started attending model club meetings in the Now, he expressed an interest to come along, and has since been at least devoted as me. We've spurred each other's efforts, such as when we built the whole “Axis Allies” series, starting with Messerschmitts marked with non-German crosses. Not that we're friends, mind you. I've been stringing him along all these years as I plot revenge. His winning the one contest I might have let go… but one of his pencil-pal letters revealed that he won the FOLLOWING year's Revell contest, and got yet another large batch of kits! It's too much… I will figure out a way to fix his little red wagon, and when I'm done with him I'll get back to those other members of the clubs I mentioned up above. Adding one other of their membership: the evil Stephen Tontoni. He organizes the NWSM's displays for the Museum of Flight, and is constantly ‘recruiting' me to build things I wouldn't have otherwise. Back Then, Ken had the Aurora kit's hassles with the strut-mounted lower wing of the Bristol Fighter. Now, for the World War I display, Stephen decided I would build the Roden kit, so I would encounter exactly the same hassles, if in somewhat more elegant form. Here's the result.
Happy April First, and don't forget to Build What You Want, The Way You Want To (Despite Your So-Called “Friends”) … and Above All, Have Fun! |
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